COTUIT — In "God of Carnage," a schoolyard conflict brings two sets of parents — the Raleighs and the Novaks — together at the Novaks' house to work it out.

Alan Raleigh, an international lawyer, admits that his son who punched out the teeth of the Novaks' son is "a savage" with no possibility for repentance.

Veronica Novak is a writer who preaches that civilized behavior is possible. Yet her husband, a working-class guy who has made good selling wholesale kitchen utensils, pleads: "Stop shoving those thoughts for the day down our throats."

You wonder why they never get to the bottom of what created the fight in the first place.

You wonder why the Raleighs stay.

But stay they do, and Raleigh is incessantly on his cellphone working out the cover-up for a big pharma drug gone wrong (which Novak's mum is coincidentally taking). Meanwhile, his "wealth manager" wife, Annette, who loves Francis Bacon's grisly paintings for their "cruelty and majesty," eats some of Veronica's weird food, with repulsive consequences.

The good news is that the actors at Cotuit Center for the Arts have fun in the parts, attempting to give them breadth beyond their paper-tiger single dimensions — and director Steve Ross handles them well in his perfect Park Avenue set.

Scott Estrella, as Michael Novak, shows his Neanderthal side proudly. Pretty Melody Fadness, as the oh-so-reasonable Veronica, lets loose her pent-up frustrations with gusto. Keith Caldwell, as Alan, who believes that human beings are ruled by the "God of Carnage," crumples well as Jennifer Perrault's Annette pounds him with her femininity and freakouts.

Because Yasmina Reza is a facile writer, there are a few deep laughs when the cliché of petty conversation concealing tensions is stripped away and the battles begin.

But, ultimately, "God of Carnage" is a testament to what's fashionable in current commercial theater. That it was a 2009 hit on Broadway, where reviewers praised it, reveals a continuing and distressing trend that raises trivia high and dashes serious drama low.

The characters are unpleasant, cynical and without much love or compassion. They are all like the hamster that Michael Novak talks about having disposed of. The message is that human self-interest, brutal survival of the fittest, is the way it is. Get over it.

It's theater of superficiality and cruelty. And if that's your cup of tea, this production would be worth a look.